


i like that you’re broken (broken like me)

by TooManyGaysTooLittleTime



Category: Three Dark Crowns Series - Kendare Blake
Genre: (skippable), @ ao3 change ‘canon lesbian relationship’ to, Bisexual Jules Milone, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Canon Sapphic Relationship, F/F, Friends to Lovers, GOD i love using that tag, Grief/Mourning, Lesbian Emilia Vatros, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Moving On, No beta we just. Fucking die, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Rating May Change, Realistic depictions of disability, Slow Burn, kendare blake was classy and did a fade to black but im not classy, there is literally no other type of burn available to me, tws are the same as for the whole 3DC series, wait, you will pry that tag from my cold dead lesbian hands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27089935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooManyGaysTooLittleTime/pseuds/TooManyGaysTooLittleTime
Summary: Jules and Emilia, after the war.
Relationships: Jules Milone/Emilia Vatros
Comments: 9
Kudos: 6





	1. crystal heart in the graveyard (i think it’s time for a new start)

**Author's Note:**

> FELLOW SAPPHICS HOW DO WE FEEL ABOUT THE FACT THAT IT’S CANON??
> 
> also how are there not more fics for this pairing??? and this fandom??
> 
> (fic title from ‘broken’ by lovelytheband)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > The weight of the crown sits heavy on Jules’s brow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my first fic for the three dark crowns fandom, so hello! i hope you enjoy!
> 
> (chapter title from kailee morgue’s ‘unfortunate soul’)

Jules is determined that her reign will be a new beginning for Fennbirn. No more sisters killing sisters: no more wars between different factions. Unity will reign, and the problems of the past will fall away. 

It seems to be a loftier goal the more she works on it, however. The systems of Fennbirn are old and well-established, and dismantling it is turning out to be a more difficult task than expected. 

She dips her pen in the ink pot and places it to parchment, scratching in her signature to the letter. Her handwriting is still a messy scrawl, smudged slightly where she has leaned her hand too heavily on the page. Jules blows short strands of hair out of her face and reads through the letter again. 

This isn’t the first complaint that she’s received from the temple: far from it. Jules feels sorry for the priestesses who are constantly having to write in to her about their financial difficulties and the lack of support from the general public.

She’s promised them a small grant to tide them over until the next festival: Beltane will be coming around again in a few months. It is almost strange to think about: in the space of less than a year, two queens have died, another has left for the mainland, and a legion-cursed Queen has been crowned. 

The weight of the crown sits heavy on Jules’s brow. The task of rebuilding Fennbirn is a difficult one, even with the people already starting to move past the war. Still, Jules finds it hard to forget all that she has been through. She is still woken by dreams of Rho Murtra, possessed by the dead queens, whirling her ax towards Jules’s head. She still sees the pink scars on her arm and remembers the horrors of the unbound legion curse.

Jules rubs her forehead, feeling a pounding headache beginning to build up behind her eyes. She blows on the parchment to dry the ink before rolling it into a cylinder and sealing it with red wax. Putting the letter to one side to be delivered tomorrow, she blows out the candle and gets out from behind her desk, rubbing at her back as she does so. 

She steadies herself using the furniture, leaning into the wall, before gathering her crutch to her side and hopping to her bed. Jules tumbles ungracefully into the bed, a tangle of leg and arms and long nightdress. She sits up to unlatch the glass and latticed window, letting it swing open to allow fresh air into her room. Breathing in the cool outside air, Jules settles underneath her covers, using her hands to adjust their position rather than her leg, and turns over to sleep. 

Although her chamber is pleasantly cool and the bed comfortable, it is no Wolf Spring. Jules hankers for the ease of her simple bed frame and ageing sheets. It has been a long time since Jules slept in a bed she could consider her own. 

Jules is unable to soothe her mind and sleep, instead occupied with concerns about Fennbirn. Not for the first time since she had ascended to the throne, she wishes that another, more capable ruler would step up. She was never meant to be queen: she was an anomaly, a flaw in the system of the three sisters. Arsinoe should have taken the throne, in the absence of Mirabella, not her. 

“Why did it have to be me?” Jules asks the empty air. There is no answer. 

* * *

“Jules!” Emilia rises from her seat at the table to rush to Jules’s side. “You look as if you have barely slept a wink last night.” 

Jules huffs out a breath and leans on Emilia as she adjusts her crutch under her arm. “It’s nothing. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

“Are you sure?” Emilia frowns as she assists Jules in sliding into her chair. “You should take a rest.” 

Jules smiles reassuringly at her from over the plate of charred bacon and eggs. “I can’t take a rest just yet, Em. There’s still work for me to do.” 

Emilia sighs. “I wish you wouldn’t do quite so much work. I fear you will tire yourself out.” 

“I am quite fine, Emilia.” Jules replies testily as she sinks her fork into the bacon. Camden comes loping into the dining hall on her good leg, fur matted by dirt, and immediately goes to Jules. She sets her tableware down to ruffle Camden’s fur. 

Emilia watches the scene with a small smile curling up the corners of her mouth. “I swear, you lose all your paleness when Camden is nearby.” 

Jules kisses the top of Camden’s head and brushes a leaf out of her fur. “Yeah, she’s my magic charm. Aren’t you, Camden,” she coos at the cat, and Camden purrs in response. 

They finish their breakfast with little conversation, the dining hall quiet this early in the morning. Few have the patience to get up so early, and since most of the naturalists returned to Wolf Spring and the seers to Sunpool, the castle has become far less crowded. 

Jules sneaks Camden pieces of her bacon under the table, and though Emilia casts a disapproving eye on it, she feeds Camden a slice of her own bacon, as well. Camden licks her hand as she eats it, leaving wet spittle across it and causing Emilia to mutter “Eulgh” to herself. 

Once their plates have been cleaned off, Jules moves to get up, but Emilia rushes out of her seat and around to Jules’s assistance before she can do so. Jules makes a face at the caretaking, but accepts Emilia’s help nonetheless. Once Jules is steady on her crutch, Camden walks ahead of them as they exit the dining hall, going slower so as to accommodate for Jules’s disability. 

“Do you want me to come with?” Emilia asks as they pause in front of the gates. Every day, she asks the same question, and every day, Jules’s response is the same.

“Not today. I need to do it alone.” 

Emilia nods, and although Jules can tell the dismissal rankles, she lets Jules exit the castle on her own. 

The war had not touched Indrid Down as much as the rest of the island: the shops are still brightly coloured and full of vibrant goods as Jules passes them, the cobblestones clean of any dark stains. The sun is barely up this early, the sky a light blue as the night fades away. Camden ambles beside Jules as she walks, alert to assist her if necessary.

Her walk is far lonelier without Arsinoe’s presence to accompany her. Jules misses their easy friendship and the way Arsinoe would smile at her with reddened cheeks when Jules asked her about Billy. Still, Jules knows that letting Arsinoe go was the right thing to do: by all accounts, she is happily settled on the mainland, with Billy to assimilate her. Jules is aware that he is much better for Arsinoe than she ever could be: war, Jules’s legion curse and Arsinoe’s low magic has strained their friendship considerably, and although they had begun to return to their old dynamic, Jules can tell that they will never be their previous selves again.

Jules is growing away from the person that she was previously, but it is difficult to distance herself when the memories still haunt her at night and the crown still sits unsteadily upon her brow.

She reaches the harbour, and Camden puts out a paw to the water before recoiling. Jules laughs and ruffles the fur on the crown of Camden’s head, a deep, throaty sound.

Leaning the majority of her weight upon her crutch, Jules stares in between the ships docked and out to sea. The mist is cleared from around the island, yet it seems as if any moment it will return, white fog sweeping in from the sea to coalesce around Fennbirn. Jules sees a small boat out at sea and is reminded of the difficulty of getting Arsinoe and Mirabella away from the island compared to the serene pace that the boat moves at on the still sea. She pushes the memory from her mind, Mirabella’s loss still raw and stinging when she thinks of her.

The tang of salt fills Jules’s nostrils, waves bumping up against the deck in a steady rhythm. She pushes a piece of matted hair out of her face, it having been blown in front of her eyes by the wind, and sighs as she contemplates the walk back to the Volroy.

Sounds of people beginning to wake up and prepare for the day can be heard in the distance, and Camden pushes against Jules’s leg, urging her to move and get on with her day. Still, Jules remains for a moment longer, staring out to sea and thinking of Arsinoe, before turning around to return to the Volroy.

As she walks through the streets, Jules sees the people’s spirit and gregariousness rise to the surface as they greet her with a polite bow and curtsy. Although Jules is not officially a queen, they already treat her like one. It makes Jules feel strangely distanced, unlike at home in Wolf Spring. She hankers for the comparative simplicity of her small room and Luke’s shop, where she could feel more like herself.

Jules smiles at the people and Camden waves a paw at them in return. She walks on, the sunlight beginning to fall upon the cobblestones and illuminate them in soft light. The sun is gentler this early in the morning, not beating down onto Jules’s back. She enjoys Indrid Down best this way: crisp air and glowing sunlight, and the merriment of the people within it. It is easier to pretend that she does not have the responsibilities of Queen upon her shoulders, even for a short while. 

Her crutch catches on a gap in between the cobbles, and Jules stumbles, leaning her weight into her crutch as she pauses to catch her breath. It had been more difficult to work with the crutch initially, but now she is mostly used to it. Occasionally, however, she still misjudges a movement and has to adjust her position again. Sometimes the strain of moving seems so difficult that Jules is tempted to hire herself a litter to be carried around in, but the freedom of walking on her own is worth the pain it causes her. 

By the time Jules returns to the Volroy, the sun is high in the sky, brightening the day so the twin fires that burn in their towers look faded. As always, she gazes upwards at them, thoughts of Katharine and Mirabella’s demises passing through her head. To her, their lives will always be interlinked with hers in some way, and she will never be free of their influences. But she can try and take the country that they left divided and make it whole again, and perhaps that is what they want her to do.

* * *

Meetings in the Black Council chamber are growing steadily colder as the first hints of winter begin to take hold, and Jules’s leg aches terribly. She grimaces as she gets up from her chair, Emilia offering her arm as usual. Jules takes it, silently grateful for Emilia’s support as they descend the twisting stairs. 

A light lunch is laid out upon the tables for them, but Jules shakes her head at it when Emilia directs her towards the head table. “I want to eat lunch out in Indrid Down today.”

“I’ll come with,” Emilia volunteers. “It will be good to see more of the city.”

The council nods placidly, accepting Jules’s decision, and she feels a rush of thankfulness. They could force her to remain and eat the lunch prepared, but they respect her wishes instead. Jules knows her reign will be different from those that had come before due to these simple gestures. 

Emilia is quiet, thoughtful as they stroll through Indrid Down. Jules can feel the low-level tension simmering between them, see by the purse of Emilia’s lips that there is something she wishes to discuss but will wait until Jules deems it the appropriate time to. 

Although there are fewer shops open in Indrid Down than before the war, they still manage to find a café on the waterfront. While Jules settles into a wicker chair, leaning her crutch against the side of the chair, Emilia goes inside to buy them food. As she waits, Jules stares out across the water, squinting to see if the mainland is visible in the distance. On the horizon, there is a rough black hunk of land, but Jules cannot make out any distinct features that might mark it out as Arsinoe’s new home. 

Emerging out of the café holding several plates and cups spread across her arms, Emilia sets them down on the small table, somehow managing not to break anything in the process. As Jules reaches for a ham sandwich, Camden places her paw on the table, tilting her head to Jules in a plea.

Jules laughs, and rips off a piece of her sandwich which she passes to Camden. The cougar devours it in several bites, purring happily. 

Emilia leans back in her own wicker chair and awkwardly sips at her tea. She is so clearly unused to the life of the higher class that Jules simply has to smile. In truth, Jules herself finds her new status strange, and it makes her glad to see that she is not the only one struggling with it. 

They eat in silence for a short while before Emilia asks, “Jules, tell me honestly. How are you?” Her eyes are trained on Jules with genuine concern.

She sets her sandwich down on the plate and curls her hand in the fur on Camden’s head. “I’m... not sure. It’s lonelier than I expected it to be, but I can’t despise Arsinoe for leaving.”

“Hey.” Emilia’s hand covers Jules’s, eyes soft. “You’ll always have me.”

Jules smiles back at her. “Thank you, Emilia.” 

“Think nothing of it.” Emilia reaches out and strokes a lock of Jules’s hair behind her ear. “You are quite pretty, you know, when you are not burdened by the crown.”

She blushes in response. Even though Jules should be used to praise by now, being hailed the saviour of Fennbirn, praise from Emilia always feels different. 

“You, as well,” she replies. “You have been more relaxed, since the war ended. You smile more.”

Emilia’s expression is soft and golden. “All due to you.”

Camden rises from her sitting position to move nearer to Emilia. The warrior looks downwards as Camden nuzzles at her thigh and strokes her in long, slow motions, Camden purring in satisfaction. The cat’s happiness flows through their familiar-bond, leaving Jules glowing as well. 

She finishes her sandwich and reaches for her crutch, leaving the dregs of the tea in the cup. It is awkward, initially, as she struggles to get out of her chair, but she manages eventually and stands there waiting for Emilia to finish drinking her tea. The sun lights up Emilia’s dark hair, softens the sharp lines of her face. Jules lets herself have this quiet moment, away from the struggles of ruling, away from her concerns.

Emilia wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand instead of the napkin provided and stands up. Jules can sense the change in her: she straightens her back, relaxed posture disappearing, and the soft light in her eyes fades. It saddens her to see the difference between the warrior and the girl.

“We should return to the Volroy,” Emilia states smartly. “There is work to be done.”

Jules nods in agreement, already missing the other side of Emilia that she had seen. Regardless, she loops her arm through Emilia’s, all the same.

* * *

“I want to move back to Wolf Spring,” Jules announces over dinner that night. The words run out like a river whose dam has fallen, and she holds her breath as she waits for the weight of the water to crash down upon her councillors.

Next to her, Emilia frowns. “It would be untraditional, to have a queen ruling from there.”

Emilia’s objections are taken up by some of the other councillors. Murmurs of “subversive” and “untraditional” and “it’s never been done before” fill Jules’s ears, but she is done listening to them.

Jules taps the tines of her fork against her goblet to create a ringing sound that directs the councillors’s attention to her. “I don’t care what you think. I’m the Queen, and it should be my choice where I live, not yours.”

Pain fills Emilia’s eyes as she turns to Jules. “If that is your choice...” she places a steady hand on Jules’s shoulder. “I will respect it. I will miss you, though, Jules.”

“What? No, Emilia, you’ll come with, too. You don’t know how much I need you.”

Emilia presses her lips into a thin line. “I get it, you wish to be among your family. I fear I would only be an unnecessary distraction.” She drops her cutlery onto the table and stands up, silencing the councillors with a wave.

“Make preparations for the Queen’s move to Wolf Spring in the morning. You should aim to have her settled back into Wolf Spring within a week of tomorrow. That will be all,” she says, and the councillors return to their meals, talking noisily.

Jules grabs hold of Emilia’s wrist. “You are not coming with? Where will you be, then?”

Emilia’s expression is hurt, but she puts up a a facade of determination as she answers, without looking Jules in the eye, “It is past time I returned to rebuild Bastian City. I wish you the best of luck, Jules, and perhaps we shall meet again.”

“No—” Jules starts, but Emilia is already walking away from the hall, without a cursory glance in Jules’s direction. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i may have taken some liberties with the geography of fennbirn here but on the whole it makes a little sense ?? i hope so
> 
> if you’re here to shit on emilia in the comments, **don’t**.


	2. come here, my stranger in the dark (don’t need nobody in my arms)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > What had seemed like memories of a time when everything was good now fades away and Jules is left wondering how everything could have changed so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first update of the new year i guess!! sorry for being mia for a while (i have no excuse) - hope u lot enjoy this <3 
> 
> chapter title from rina sawayama’s (super gay) song lucid
> 
> also there’s a bit of masturbation in this chapter (hence the M rating) so if you want to skip it it lasts from "Moonlight glistens over the slatted wooden floor when she wakes" to "Camden’s soft, throaty purr of contentment echoes through the dark".

Jules gathers up her papers, shuffling them together into a neat stack, and ties them together with string. The sun streams through the window, Camden snuffles around the floor, and when Jules glances around the room she feels as if part of the weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

She tucks the papers under her arm and runs a hand through her hair, sighing. 

The room is almost completely stripped of any personality, reduced to four blank walls, an emptied desk, and a bed with sheets still unmade. There is no noticeable sign that Jules had ever lived there, no impact that she had made. 

Jules had never thought the room home anyways. To her, home was always Wolf Spring, and the comfort of Eva’s caws and Camden’s content purr. Though she has not returned to Wolf Spring since the war began—since Joseph died—her memories have remained in her mind, and Jules has hankered for it ever since she left it. 

She is not so naive as to think moving back to Wolf Spring will be easy. There will doubtless be many challenges that she must meet, many issues and problems that she must address. But, as Jules looks around the bare room one last time, she thinks that her true future is about to begin. 

* * *

Several members of her Council wait outside the Volroy, already dressed in their finest travelling clothes. Jules can feel the irritation rolling off the more noble of them as she makes her way down the stairs in front of the Volroy, breathing heavily. Behind her, a servant carries her chest of luggage, which is lighter than it appears as the majority of Jules’s things were already at Wolf Spring. 

Jules is panting by the time she has made it down the stairs, and gestures to the servants that they should wait a moment to allow her to catch her breath. She leans on her crutch hard enough that she thinks it may splinter from her weight, using it to hold herself up.

Camden snatches at the carriage wheel with her paw, mistrusting the strange object. Jules bends down to gently pull her away, hand on the scruff of her neck. The cougar growls lowly but acquiesces. 

Her luggage is loaded onto the back of the carriage with the other council members’s. It is noticeably less than theirs, for Jules had packed far more lightly. 

“Queen Jules, will you need assistance to get into the carriage?” The servant is at her elbow, eyes wide with an arm extended to her, so eager and ready to help her with such a simple task. 

Jules eyes up the steps that extend from the carriage, trying to gauge the difficulty of ascending them. She shakes her head at the offer.

“No, thank you,” she replies, and, bracing herself on the side, goes up the steps with three small, weak hops. Camden follows behind, not taking it in one flying leap like she used to but stepping up it slowly and carefully. 

Jules settles herself inside the carriage, leaning her crutch against the wall and propping her leg up on the seat opposite her. Her boots are worn and muddied, and one of the council members is sure to throw a fit about that, but Jules will ignore them when they do.

Vaguely, she thinks that Emilia would not chastise her for the state of her boots, but thoughts of Emilia are sharp-edged and sting, so she forgets the thought as quickly as it had come to her. 

Camden lies down on the floor, under her leg, curled up tightly to save space for the Council’s belongings. Her muzzle is dusted gray and the fur is silted with dust, and Jules reaches down to wipe it off, scratching her nails through the fur.

The rest of her council members enter the carriage faster than Jules had, the last one making a face at the lack of room. Jules smiles thinly and leans back in her seat, preparing for a long ride back to Wolf Spring. 

* * *

She feels a jostling against her cheek and blinks her eyes open, startled by the odd feeling and the sudden rush of noise in her ears. For a moment she knows nothing but confusion, panic briefly rising in her chest, before she remembers that she is in a carriage travelling to Wolf Spring.

Outside the sky is beginning to dim, light blue staining with gray, and the dark shapes of trees pass through the window fast and are rapidly gone. The pace of the horses and the bumpy state of the road make Jules’s crutch wobble in its position, sliding against the carriage wall.

By now, they have surely left the capital far behind, and when Jules twists her body to check, she cannot see the flames for Katharine and Mirabella burning. It should sadden her, but instead it is as if a heavy weight has been lifted. The absence of the flames, of all the tragedy and death contained within them, seems to foreshadow a moving on from the pain the past still holds for her. A moving on that is still yet to come, but Jules can see it in the distance. Even if it takes months or even years, Jules is determined that she will reach that place, one day. 

Although she tries, she cannot bring herself to sleep any longer on the rest of the journey, and thus spends the rest of the ride staring out of the window, watching as the sky progresses ever further towards darkness and the carriage continues to hurtle onwards.

The pace at which they progress towards Wolf Spring is undoubtedly rapid, but to Jules it still seems to last an age before she sees the lights of Wolf Spring beginning to come into view up ahead. She expects to feel gratitude when it is cobbles rather than a dirt road that the carriage’s wheels roll over, but instead she only feels—empty, drained. Jules feels nothing, wants nothing in the world, for it is all grey and misted over, the joy that she had once felt seeming so very long ago. The sadness hurts her worse than her leg does.

Slowly, but steadily, more lights begin to gather around the carriage, and it slows as it pulls into the town, all countryside disappearing in favour of the central square’s many buildings.

Cait and Ellis are waiting immediately outside the carriage when it halts at last in Wolf Spring and the driver opens the door to let Jules and her councillors out, naturally, as well as Caragh and Matthew—the latter is a slight surprise for Jules, as in the darkness he looks like a near-perfect copy of Joseph. Yet, when he embraces Jules tightly, enthusiastic as he pulls her close, the voice she hears welcoming her home is not Joseph’s but Matthew’s older, deeper one, far less boyish than Joseph’s had been, and the arms around her are not Joseph’s at all. 

She cannot tell if she is glad of this difference between them or not.

As ever, Cait is unerringly practical, and after she hugs Jules in welcome she resumes her usual businesslike manner and starts to supervise the unloading of the baggage. Ellis’s smile crinkles the corners of his mouth as he wraps her in his arms, patting Camden’s head when she lopes down from the carriage.

Caragh tells her that Fenn is sleeping, and they did not wish to wake him, but that she will see him tomorrow. She turns Jules’s face in the light, gentle smile upon her face, and remarks on how much older Jules seems to look.

“It is the burden of queenship, Aunt Caragh,” Jules answers, truthfully. 

“We shall have to find something to unburden you, then, my Jules. I do not like you looking so old,” Caragh says before wrapping her in a strong, secure hug. Jules breathes in the scent of Caragh, cinnamon and cloves, and is immediately filled with the familiar warmth of home, the illusion of happiness seeming to cling to her like the aura of tragedy her aunt carries about her. 

“Come, let’s get you inside,” Caragh releases her from the hug and puts an arm around her shoulders to walk with her. Jules can tell that Caragh slows her walking pace in order to make sure she does not feel inadequate. She normally dislikes assistance, but she is so worn down and exhausted by now that she accepts it wordlessly and is not bitter. 

The cobbles are hard on Jules’s feet, and Caragh notices her grimaces of pain, tries to soothe it by allowing Jules to further lean on her. Gratefully, Jules does so, breathing heavily as the two of them walk. Cait and Ellis do not follow them, and Jules knows that it is likely because they feel it necessary to prepare a place for her to rule from Wolf Spring. She feels guilty that the true reason for her relocation is that she wishes to feel less like a burdened queen and more like the younger, joyous girl she was, and now she can never say it. Being queen has forced her to seal her lips closed and turn her back on honesty: only laws and speeches remain for her.

Still, she attempts to start what little conversation she can with Caragh. “How is the return to Wolf Spring treating you?” Jules asks as they walk, stray hair falling into her face. She raises one hand and attempts to tug it away and tuck it over her shoulder, a difficult task when her whole body must be concentrated on walking.

In the dim light, Caragh’s gentle smile is turned monstrous and shadowed. “As well as it can with so much loss, I suppose. Matthew helps, and so does taking care of little Fenn. You know, he is growing fast, much like you, I believe. He reminds me that there is still hope.”

Jules’s next words come as a surprise to even herself. “I should like to assist you in caring for Fenn, some day. He needs his older sister around.”

Caragh’s voice is warm, undeniably affectionate as she replies “That shall be excellent. When your queenly duties allow you to, Matthew and I would love your help.”

She grins down at the cobbles, all the pain gone for a moment to be replaced with hope. “I would love to help, Aunt Caragh.”

“Fenn would enjoy it too, I’m sure. Ah! There is your old house, right there. Come, I shall help you to bed.”

They continue down the road towards Jules’s once-home, silent as they listen to the sound of the waves crashing insistently against the shoreline. Caragh helps her all the way there, even lifts her up the step in front of the door and carries her in her arms like a babe up the stairs. If the pain of caring for Jules hurts her, if she pities how far Jules has fallen, she does not show it. 

“Good night, Jules.”

Jules pastes a smile on her face for Caragh. “Good night, Aunt Caragh, and—thank you.”

As Caragh shuts the door to Jules’s bedroom to allow Jules her privacy to undress and change her clothing, she says “It is nothing,” as if she could simply shrug off the burden that Jules’s weakness had placed on her. As if such a great show of frailty on Jules’s part did not trouble her.

It seems that Jules still has things to learn about Caragh and her own family in the aftermath of her injury.

* * *

The bed creaks when Jules settles into it, and the sheets are musty and aged, but it is undeniably her bed, her home. Camden’s purr is deep and satisfied as she lies on the woollen blanket, large head resting on her paws. She smiles, tired but contented. 

Closing her eyes is easier, a natural progression from the day’s events, and Jules slips into a light sleep easily. 

Still, even once the darkness of sleep has claimed her, she cannot rest nor escape the past either. In her dreams she relives flashes of the war: Rho’s axe swirling towards her, the sheer, blood-red, mindless anger of the unleashed legion curse that overtook her and forced her into chains like a prisoner, Arsinoe cutting into her arm again and again to save Jules. Fighting against the deluge of memories, Jules forces herself to snap out of the dreams and away from sleep. 

Moonlight glistens over the slatted wooden floor when she wakes in a cold sweat, soft and pale white against her eyes. Sleep blurs her vision, the dreams still seeming to hang over her even when she knows she is no longer fighting the war, and her room lies partially in shadow, the body of Camden barely visible.

In an effort to soothe herself back into sleep, Jules turns herself over underneath the warm, comfortably old sheets, face pressed into the pillow. She breathes in the scent of the fabric, Jules’s own wild smell mixed with slight, fading tinges of Joseph that still remain despite all the time that has passed.

Joseph’s distinctive smell, like the sea and the woods together ( _a beach, he was always a beach, living and dying upon the golden sands_ ), brings up memories of a happier time. Jules smiles to herself, lips against the worn pillow, as she remembers the first time they had lain together. It seems so long ago now, for so much has happened in the time since then, and Jules cannot help but think of it as a folly of youth.

She still smiles when she thinks of Joseph’s face flushed a ruddy brick-red, the heat of their bodies as they moved together. Imperfectly, yes, but it had still seemed heavenly to Jules.

Her blush sallows, however, when she remembers that Joseph is laid to rest on the mainland, in a place he had never quite loved, rather than in Fennbirn, in Wolf Spring, where he belongs. What had seemed like memories of a time when everything was good now fades away and Jules is left wondering how everything could have changed so much.

There is a heat, however, under her skin that has been steadily and stealthily building up despite the dips and peaks of her thoughts. The feeling is only familiar to her from her first time with Joseph—reminiscing must have brought that feeling back. She can tell that it will not subside upon its own, and that she will be unable to sleep unless she takes care of it, so to speak. Hence the only option left to her, as there is nobody next to her that may assist her, is to press her hand underneath the waist of her trousers and try and remember the way Joseph had done it.

She cries out softly when her nail grazes sensitive flesh, the pain burrowing beneath her skin, and tries again to press her finger inside herself, wrist struggling under the fabric of her trousers. Jules gropes at the side of her trousers with her other hand, attempting unsuccessfully to pull them down and off her body.

When she finally manages to push her finger inside, she gasps with equal parts pleasure-pain, panting heavily against her pillow. The memory of Joseph evaporates away rapidly, and for a moment it is only her, alone, in bed. The dark, cold reality of the night, the dark, cold dirt that Joseph now rests beneath, force thoughts of happiness away, and mentally she grabs for something, _anything_ to help her crawl away from the all-consuming loneliness swamping her.

To her surprise, it is not Joseph that she thinks of, but instead the warrior Emilia, dark hair and deep eyes that bore into her. She closes her eyes, and it could almost be Emilia’s finger inside her, Emilia’s body lying beside her on the bed. Jules groans at the thought, shifting her hips to press another finger in.

Jules is a poor judge of her own arousal, imperfectly feeling for that place that Joseph had touched so long ago, guiltily knowing that Emilia would likely be far better than her at it. She sighs as she finds it, body immediately relaxing in contentment. Her hand grows more confident as she strokes herself to completion, burying her cry within the fabric of the pillow and sagging downwards into the sheets as if she is a puppet and someone has cut off all of her strings suddenly.

She lets out a contented sigh, sliding onto her side and closing her eyes again. There is still a residual heat beneath her skin, but it is a much more manageable level now compared to the fire that had burned in her before.

Camden’s soft, throaty purr of contentment echoes through the dark, and as Jules falls back into sleep she forgets about the crown that rests upon her head, forgets about the throne waiting for her, forgets about the broken country that requires her to restore it. Wolf Spring strips that away from her, returning her to the girl she used to be, if only for a single night.

* * *

Jules is the first to wake up of the household. With her eyesight still blurred by sleep and hair mussed up and damp, she tugs her crutch up from where it lies on the floor and into position under her arm. She hops over Camden’s sleeping body and down the stairs. Leaning against the wall to swing open the doorframe and walk out, she is struck by the cold, salted air of Wolf Spring in the bright, early hours of the morning.

The leaves upon the trees have turned from the bright green of spring to the steadily darkening reddish hue that signifies autumn’s beginnings. Soon, Jules knows, winter will return to Fennbirn, sealing the evidence of the war—all the blood in the soil, all the piles of corpses buried in mass graves—beneath a coating of ice and frost.

A shiver passes down her spine, and Jules’s teeth chatter together. She curses herself for wearing only her loose shirt and trousers, and forgetting to put a shawl over her shoulders for warmth. Her leg is cramping up from the cold, as well, and Jules grimaces as the pain numbly jolts through her leg, once again hating how weak the war has made her.

Still, despite the chill and the pain, she continues walking towards the waterfront, choosing to take the cobbled road rather than subject herself to the rocks, hills and dips of the route running through the forest. Jules’s breath as she reaches the harbour is running out of her mouth in large white clouds of steam, mixing with the pale-blue dawn sky.

There is a bench resting upon a patch of grass that overlooks the sea, and Jules walks to it and slides onto the seat with a relieved sigh. Her crutch she leans beside her, and she stretches her leg out in front.

Jules looks out across the gently lapping waves of the sea, noticing the flat black lumps upon the horizon that could only be the mainland. She wonders if she is looking at Joseph’s final resting place, wonders if she will ever get the chance to go to his grave to mourn properly. She could spend all her life like this, mourning for him from afar, and never see the place where his body lies under the dirt.

Pressing her face into her cupped hands, Jules begins to sob. Her tears dampen her fingers, trickling through to drip upon the ground. Hands slick with tears, she feels thoughts of Joseph’s death now threatening to overwhelm her.

Like an approaching storm now starting to rain, Jules whispers her deepest, saddest thoughts into her hands as she cries.

_Joseph, I never wanted to leave you and turn my back. I hope you can forgive me, Joseph, for I am the one who abandoned you and turned my back. I gave you all my forgiveness and left none for myself._

_You should have lived rather than me, if neither of us could have lived. It should have been I who died: you never deserved to die, even though I hated you sometimes._

_Wherever you are, I hope that you are at peace. That, at least, is more than I could do for you._

_I’m sorry, Joseph. I was a fool._

She says a thousand apologies, maybe, sobbed into her arms as the storm of her emotions wracks her. The grief she feels now has been held back so long. With the war to be fought and won, the mist to be confronted, and the mystery at the heart of the island to be solved, there has been little opportunity for Jules to feel anything other than the war-spirit that had broken into her heart and filled her up on it. Filled her up enough to replace what she had lost when she was broken by the war-gift’s binding being unleashed. 

The war has broken her again, this time physically, with one leg forever hanging useless, but Jules still survived that breaking. And now she has to try and exist when she is so shattered and barely held together. 

Not for the first time, she hates her loneliness, hates how the crown deposited roughly on her head isolates her from everyone else. She curses her decision to leave and send Emilia away, for although Emilia’s help had been imperfect and heavy-handed at times, it had been help, and that was better than nothing at all. 

Then she thinks of Joseph again, and all other thoughts flee her head, replaced by another all-consuming wave of grief, sweeping over her strongly enough to drown. 

Jules is not sure how long she stays like that, crying into her palms, for. However, when she lifts her head from her hands, the sunrise before her takes her breath away. Pink-orange rising from the horizon, previously hidden behind the mainland, and painting the sea and the sky in glorious colours—purple, flushed pink, orange, streaks of yellow.

Although Jules’s tears have not even dried on her cheeks, there is still beauty in the world. There is still a chance for Jules to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is sorta bad but leave a comment if u enjoyed i love them (and u guys!!) so much


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